What It Was Like Being at Sante Fe High School During the Shooting

When the fire alarm sounded and screams erupted in the halls on May 18, Santa Fe High School senior Bree Butler, 18, and her classmates made a bold choice.

Instead of evacuating the building, as is protocol when the fire alarm is triggered, they sat and waited on the floor of a classroom with the lights off and the door locked. Then, they began building a barricade in front of the door. Just months earlier, a gunman had entered Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and pulled a fire alarm to lure students out into the open.

Shortly after the shooting in Parkland, Santa Fe High School received a series of violent threats, and some students had heard loud sounds they feared were gunshots. The school went into lockdown for four hours. “We’ve allbeen on high alert since then,” Bree says.

So, despite years spent learning procedure — hear the alarm, leave the school, no questions asked — Bree’s AP European History class sat quietly in the dark, opting to face the risk of flames rather than that of gunfire. The students remained in lockdown until another teacher came to the door and yelled, “Get out! Run! Get out now!”

At that point, Bree and her classmates assumed there was a real fire. They evacuated to a field behind the school, where she met up with her sister, who is a freshman. There, Bree waited, completely unaware that her initial instincts had been all too right.

“We were standing outside for only a little while,” Bree tells Teen Vogue. “All of a sudden, we heard three gunshots. I grabbed my little sister’s hand and we literally ran for our lives.”

“Then, I was standing up for people in Florida who I didn’t even know, but cared about so deeply because they had gone through this unspeakable tragedy,” Bree says. “Now it’s my own classmates. It’s people I personally know and knew…. It’s terrifying.”

Kennedy Rodriguez, 18, is also a senior at Santa Fe High School. She was still at home, getting ready to go to school when the shooting happened.

“I was just waking up and starting my breakfast,” says Kennedy. “At 7:30 a.m. I get a phone call from my friend telling me, ‘Something’s going on.’” Though she and her friends were still in the dark about the severity of the situation, Kennedy was anxious. “Instantly, there was this fear within me.”

Like Bree, Kennedy had been an activist within the March for Our Lives movement. She went to the March 24 event in Washington, D.C., with her aunt. “It made me feel like I was doing something really important, that I was part of something that was bigger than myself,” Kennedy says. “It made me feel powerful and it made me proud to be young.”

On April 20, the day of the National Student Walkout, Kennedy and a friend organized a demonstration before school to promote the #NeverAgain movement and memorialize the lives lost to gun violence. Twelve students and a teacher gathered around the school’s flagpole at 6 a.m., she says, where they held 17 minutes of silence and handed out informational flyers. Kennedy read a poem written by a survivor of the Parkland shootings.

“We [see] young people, people our age, die, and we don’t think that’s OK,” Kennedy says. “Seeing it happen to my school, my friends, my town, it doesn’t feel real. Like some kind of nightmare. I understand the Parkland kids now more than ever.”

“Guns can be dangerous things,” she continues, “and if we allow people in office who take donations from the NRA, who won’t make these changes to save our lives, then we have to do something about it.”

Along with protests and school walkouts, Kennedy recommends that young people get involved in their local government, educate themselves on gun policy, and most importantly, vote. She also sympathizes with those affected by gun violence who say it’s “too soon” to talk politics, but she disagrees nonetheless. “It’s already too late for so many, for the kids at Parkland, the kids at my school. It’s too late for so many and it has been for so long. We need action.”

“Your thoughts and your prayers are greatly appreciated,” she continues, “but we need more than that. My classmates should not have to die just because you feel like you should have military grade weapons in your home…it’s not just self defence, it’s killing children.”

Megan McGuire, 17, is a junior at Santa Fe High School. She was in math class when the shooting happened. At first, she and her classmates thought it was a typical fire drill. They were even laughing and joking around. She then describes that ambivalence turning to sheer terror. “As we were about three feet from the exit, some people started pushing at my back and telling me to run and duck for cover.”

“Rumors were flying around and people were screaming out random body counts and random, different stories about about what was happening. There were rumors a bomb had gone off, another rumor that said they were holding people hostage, we had no idea what was going on…. It was chaotic, kids were crying, people were having panic attacks,” she says.

Unlike Bree and Kennedy, Megan wasn’t able to attend some of the previous March for Our Lives affiliated events. She was sick on the day of the National School Walkout and her parents had not let her attend the Houston March for Our Lives. She says they were concerned someone would open fire at the demonstrators, as Houston is an open carry city and they feared the march’s regulatory stance on guns could spark counter protests or incite violence.

Consequently, most of Megan’s activism was online up until this point. However, she says the recent shootings have inspired her to take her advocacy further.

According to a press release from the Houston branch of March for Our Lives, an upcoming press conference will be held where Santa Fe students can express their beliefs in the wake of this tragedy. Bree, Kennedy, and Megan are all expected to speak.

“Doing the same things and expecting different results is insanity. We’re doing the same thing over and over and over again,” Megan says. “Now [teen activists] have a platform. But it’s taken the lives of 10 people for the public to listen to us.”

She also emphasizes that the goal of the March for Our Lives movement is not to strip anyone of their Second Amendment rights. “We’re not trying to ban all guns,” Megan says.

Bree, Kennedy, and Megan have all made contact with student survivors from Parkland, who offered advice on coping with the aftermath of trauma. Now, the survivors of Santa Fe have advice for peers who may face this in the future.

“In the moment, take care of yourself. Do what you can to stay alive,” Bree says. “In the aftermath, reach out to others who have been through what you have been through. Talk about it. Don’t bottle it up. And take a stand for what you believe in.”